Page images
PDF
EPUB

A motley cable soon Pat Jennings ties,
Where Spitalfields with real India vies.
Like Iris' bow, down darts the painted clew,
Starred, striped, and spotted, yellow, red, and blue,
Old calico, torn silk, and muslin new.
George Green below, with palpitating hand,
Loops the last kerchief to the beaver's band,
Upsoars the prize! The youth with joy unfeigned
Regained the felt, and felt what he regained;
While to the applauding galleries grateful Pat
Made a low bow, and touched the ransomed hat.

JAMES SMITH.

THE CATARACT OF LODORE.

DESCRIBED IN RHYMES FOR THE NURSERY.

"How does the water
Come down at Lodore?"
My little boy asked me
Thus, once on a time;
And moreover he tasked me
To tell him in rhyme.
Anon at the word,

There first came one daughter,
And then came another,
To second and third
The request of their brother,
And to hear how the water
Comes down at Lodore,
With its rush and its roar,

As many a time
They had seen it before.
So I told them in rhyme,
For of rhymes I had store;
And 't was in my vocation

For their recreation
That so I should sing;
Because I was Laureate
To them and the King.

From its sources which well
In the tarn on the fell;
From its fountains
In the mountains,
Its rills and its gills;
Through moss and through brake,
It runs and it creeps
For a while, till it sleeps

In its own little lake.
And thence at departing,
Awakening and starting,
It runs through the reeds,
And away it proceeds,
Through meadow and glade,
In sun and in shade,
And through the wood-shelter,
Among crags in its flurry,

Helter-skelter,
Hurry-skurry.

Here it comes sparkling, And there it lies darkling; Now smoking and frothing Its tumult and wrath in, Till in this rapid race On which it is bent, It reaches the place Of its steep descent.

The cataract strong
Then plunges along,
Striking and raging
As if a war waging

Its caverns and rocks among;
Rising and leaping,
Sinking and creeping,
Swelling and sweeping,
Showering and springing,
Flying and flinging,
Writhing and ringing,
Eddying and whisking,
Spouting and frisking,
Turning and twisting,
Around and around
With endless rebound:
Smiting and fighting,
A sight to delight in ;
Confounding, astounding,

Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound.

Collecting, projecting, Receding and speeding, And shocking and rocking, And darting and parting, And threading and spreading, And whizzing and hissing, And dripping and skipping, And hitting and splitting, And shining and twining, And rattling and battling, And shaking and quaking, And pouring and roaring, And waving and raving, And tossing and crossing, And flowing and going, And running and stunning, And foaming and roaming, And dinning and spinning, And dropping and hopping, And working and jerking, And guggling and struggling, And heaving and cleaving, And moaning and groaning;

And glittering and frittering, And gathering and feathering,

[blocks in formation]

BY THE HON. EDWARD E, OF BOSTON.

PONDEROUS projectiles, hurled by heavy hands,
Fell on our Liberty's poor infant head,
Ere she a stadium had well advanced

On the great path that to her greatness led;

Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting,
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying, Her temple's propylon was shatter-ed;
Advancing and prancing and glancing and dan-
cing,

Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling,
And gleaming and streaming and steaming and
beaming,

And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,

And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,

Yet, thanks to saving Grace and Washington,
Her incubus was from her bosom hurled;
And, rising like a cloud-dispelling sun,
She took the oil with which her hair was curled
To grease the "hub" round which revolves the
world.

This fine production is rather heavy for an "anthem," and contains too much of Boston to be considered strictly national. To set such an "anthem" to music would require a Wagner; and even were it

And curling and whirling and purling and really accommodated to a tune, it could only be whistled by the twirling,

[blocks in formation]

populace.

We now come to a

NATIONAL ANTHEM.

BY JOHN GREENLEAF W.

My native land, thy Puritanic stock
Still finds its roots firm bound in Plymouth Rock;
And all thy sons unite in one grand wish,
To keep the virtues of Preserv-ed Fish.

Preserv-ed Fish, the Deacon stern and true,
Told our New England what her sons should do;
And, should they swerve from loyalty and right,
Then the whole land were lost indeed in night.

The sectional bias of this "anthem" renders it unsuitable for use
in that small margin of the world situated outside of New England.
Hence the above must be rejected.
Here we have a very curious

NATIONAL ANTHEM.

BY DR. OLIVER WENDELL H

A DIAGNOSIS of our history proves
Our native land a land its native loves;
Its birth a deed obstetric without peer,
Its growth a source of wonder far and near.

To love it more, behold how foreign shores
Sink into nothingness beside its stores.
Hyde Park at best-though counted ultragrand-
The "Boston Common" of Victoria's land

The committee must not be blamed for rejecting the above after

reading thus far, for such an "anthem" could only be sung by a

college of surgeons or a Beacon Street tea-party.
Turn we now to a

NATIONAL ANTHEM.

BY RALPH WALDO E.

SOURCE immaterial of material naught,

Focus of light infinitesimal,

Sum of all things by sleepless Nature wrought, Of which abnormal man is decimal.

Refract, in prism immortal, from thy stars
To the stars blent incipient on our flag,
To beam translucent, neutrifying death,
And raise to immortality "the rag."

This "anthem" was greatly praised by a celebrated German scholar, but the committee will feel obliged to reject it on account of its too childish simplicity.

Here we have a

NATIONAL ANTHEM.

BY WILLIAM CULLEN B-—.

THE sun sinks softly to his evening post,
The sun swells grandly to his morning crown;
Yet not a star our flag of heaven has lost,

And not a sunset stripe with him goes down.

So thrones may fall; and from the dust of those New thrones may rise, to totter like the last; But still our country's nobler planet glows,

While the eternal stars of Heaven are fast.

Upon finding that this does not go well to the air of "Yankee Doodle," the committee feel justified in declining it; being further. more prejudiced against it by a suspicion that the poet has crowded an advertisement of a paper which he edits into the first line. Next we quote from a

[blocks in formation]

NATIONAL ANTHEM.

BY N. P. W.

ONE hue of our flag is taken
From the cheeks of my blushing pet,
And its stars beat time and sparkle
Like the studs on her chemisette.

Its blue is the ocean shadow
That hides in her dreamy eyes,
And it conquers all men, like her,

And still for a Union flies.

Several members of the committee find that this anthem has too much of the Anacreon spice to suit them. We next peruse a

NATIONAL ANTHEM.

BY THOMAS BAILEY A.

THE little brown squirrel hops in the corn,
The cricket quaintly sings;
The emerald pigeon nods his head,

And the shad in the river springs;
The dainty sunflower hangs its head
On the shore of the summer sea;
And better far that I were dead,

If Maud did not love me.

I love the squirrel that hops in the corn,
And the cricket that quaintly sings;
And the emerald pigeon that nods his head,
And the shad that gayly springs.

I love the dainty sunflower, too,
And Maud with her snowy breast;

I love them all; but I love - I love-
I love my country best.

This is certainly very beautiful, and sounds somewhat like Tennyson. Though it may be rejected by the committee, it can never lose its value as a piece of excellent reading for children. It is calculated to fill the youthful mind with patriotism and natural history, beside touching the youthful heart with an emotion palpitating for all.

We close the list with the following:

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

депу

As he died to make mon

лили

and me;

holy. At as die to

make mon fee

While Ard is marching

on.

Inha Hard Howe.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »